SPIN, verb transitive preterit tense and participle passive spun. Span is not used. [If the sense is to draw out or extend, this coincides in origin with span.]

1. To draw out and twist into threads, either by the hand or machinery; as, to spin wool, cotton or flax; to spin goats' hair. All the yarn which Penelope spun in Ulysses' absence did but fill Ithaca with moths.

2. To draw out tediously; to form by a slow process of be degrees; with out; as, to spin out large volumes on a subject.

3. To extend to a great length; as, to spin out a subject.

4. To draw out; to protract; to spend by delays; as, to spin out the day in the idleness By one delay after another, they spin out their whole lives.

5. To whirl with a thread; to turn or cause to whirl; as, to spin a top.

6. To draw out from the stomach in a filament; as, a spider spins a web.

TO spin HAY, in military language, is to twist it into ropes for convenient carriage on an expedition.

SPIN, v.il.

1. To practice spinning; to work at drawing and twisting threads; as, the woman knows how to spin They neither know to spin nor car to toil.

2. To perform the act of drawing and twisting threads; as, a machine or jenny spins with great exactness.

3. To move round rapidly; to whirl; as a top or a spindle.

4. To stream or issue in a thread or small current; as, blood spins from a vein.